Nut Milk.

Recently, a pastry student complained that her almond milk was too grainy. She wanted to know if we could do a better job. Damn skippy we could –and we started down a fruitful path of exploration.

Almond milk is typically made by blending almonds with hot water and straining the resulting glop through cheesecloth; most of the solids are retained in the cheesecloth and most of the liquid and fat passes through (coconut milk is made in a similar fashion). We do things a bit differently: we blend the almonds with hot water and put the resulting sludge into a centrifuge at 4000 g’s for 20 minutes. The centrifuge separates the mixture into 3 parts based on density. At the bottom are the grainy solids (which we discard), in the middle is the watery stuff, and the fat floats on top. Almond milk made this way is incomparably smooth and delicious.

Then we got to thinking. If almond milk is good, how about peanut milk, pistachio milk and pecan milk? They are all fantastic. What if we replaced the water with chicken stock, dashi, or orange juice? The orange pecan milk was a dud, but the dashi and chicken milks we made with peanuts and pistachios were amazing.

The ground peanut paste and stock being loaded into the centrifuge bottles.

In the bottles on the left are the solids, the pans on the right hold the fats and milks.

Initially, we had problems with the pistachio milks because the 3 pound vacuum packed cans of pistachios we buy have too many bad and oxidized pistachios. A couple of bad pistachios will ruin the whole batch of milk. It is now our standard procedure to dump all of the pistachios on a sheet tray and visually check for crappy pistachios.

Application: Soups

For our first application, we wanted to do a riff on Tom Kha Gai, Thai chicken and coconut milk soup. Luckily we have a Thai intern to get the flavors right.

Soup:
red miso paste
Ayu fish sauce (this is an amazing new fish sauce being brought in from Japan. It smells like country ham. It is crazy good. Get it from True World Foods).
Chopped scallions
Bacon bits
Pistachio oil
Coconut-milk/lime fluid-gel
Rice vinegar

13 Comments so far ↓

Everything old is new again. Almond milk was a common ingredient in the late 14th century because 1) half the days on the calendar were set aside for meatless eating—the so-called lean days—and 2) cow’s milk spoiled very fast whereas almond milk lasted longer without refrigeration. Usually a combination of sweet almonds with a few bitter almonds were pounded to a paste with water in a mortar and then strained through linen with a two-man twisting action. The almond milk was often used for soups, as in the original blanc manger. (See http://xrl.us/bgxevf)

I’ve found it fairly easy to obtain good almond milk using blanched, raw almonds and filtered water. The pureeing is done in a Vita-Mix. The straining is done through unbleached muslin and physical force. The resulting “milk” is very smooth and silky with no solids.

Using simple stocks instead of water is a new twist. I’ll have to give it a try.

As perhaps your only gluten, dairy, and soy allergic reader, I must chime in as nutmilks are part of my regular rotation. I was just thinking a few days ago, as I was making cashew milk, that a cetrifuge would be a great way to make the milk smoother. A couple of comments…

First, cashew milk is wonderful and very creamy, with a very mild flavor. One can even make a whipped cream-like substance with it, if you make it extra strong by extracting with less water, or by not extracting, but using a professional blender to really pulverize the paste. (Peter mentions above that he uses a Vitamix…I would love to say I have tried that, but they run about €800 here, so, like a cetrifuge, not really an option for my little home kitchen.)

Second, you may like to try soaking the nuts overnight before grinding. This is particularly useful for cashews and pecans, which seem to soften significantly and make a thicker milk after soaking.

Other thoughts–hazelnut milk makes amazing hot chocolate,–don’t forget sesame and sunflower seeds, both of which have a rather green flavor, but are interesting,–last, especially for drinking milks, I have found it essential to add a bit of salt at the end, otherwise it all tastes a bit watery.

Did you ever acquire a wet-grinder? I have been thinking that could be a great way to really pulverize the nuts before adding additional water.

Hi Kelly,
We have 2 wet grinders. We love them. We use them all the time for nut butters as well as chocolate. You should definitely get one. As for the price of the vita-prep in the EU I’m shocked. We always comment that people use the thermomix in the EU simply because they don’t have vita-preps. Now I know why. Can you buy one on eBay US and have it shipped? They are $400-500 here (330 Euros). Heck, for 800 euro you could take a vacation over here and bring one home.

Yes, voltage would be a problem, but not an insurmountable one given the extreme price difference. I have a Hobart vintage Kitchenaid I brought with me that I will run off of a transformer as soon as I get my kitchen organized (don’t even get me started on the ridiculous mini-kitchens over here…). I could run an American Vitamix off of the same transformer, I’ll just have to look up the wattage. Wet grinders seem impossible to find here too, which is funny since there is such a large population of Indians in Europe, but maybe I just haven’t yet found the correct German word for wet grinder. I will ask at the local Asia-markt tomorrow.

In other thoughts I am so inspired by the nutmilk soup idea…I am thinking of cashew-curry-apple (chutney) or sesame-rosewater-chicken. mmm.

Hi Kelly,
Several years ago I spoke to a vita-prep rep about using the 60 cycle motor on 50 cycles. It won’t spin as fast. My memory is that they make a 220/50. I wonder if they will sell it in the US at US prices?

Hi Ryon,
We have 2 fuges, but the one I’d recommend for chefs is the Jouan C412 or similar. They are older, but widely available on eBay, therefore cheap. They do 4000g’s. 3 liters per spin in 4 750ml buckets.